Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Poets
Blessed Richard Rolle
Hermit († 1349)Feast: September 29
“For straightway, while I meditated, my thought was turned into melody of song…and by reason of the interior sweetness which was outpoured upon me, I was impelled to sing what before I had only said.” Richard Rolle was born in Yorkshire around the year 1300. A generous benefactor sponsored his studies at Oxford. But at nineteen, recognizing the shortness of life, he left school. Fashioning a hermit’s habit out of some old clothes, he turned to a life of prayer.
His preaching so moved the local squire that he decided to support Richard in his new life. In his solitude, Richard experienced amazing insights, which he recorded in both prose and verse for the benefit of others. But while writing, he was also able to converse eloquently and attentively with those who came to him for advice. Then his increasing popularity forced him to relocate to a tiny village where he became a spiritual guide for a convent of Cistercian nuns.
Richard wrote in Latin and English. One of his best-known works is The Fire (or Melody) of Love. He seems to have experienced, like Saint Philip Neri, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which produced an inexplicable warmth near his heart. “I had not thought before that such sweet heat and comfort might come to pass in this exile.” He died in 1349.
Almighty Father, through the intercession of
Saint Richard Rolle, may we abandon ourselves
to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
